After Thoughts: Chapter 2

Welcome to Michaela Mae's Audiobook Experience for The Barn off of Colfax Lane: an unfiltered memoir about sexual assault and the mixed feelings that come with it. 

In this book Michaela tells her story of the childhood sexual abuse she experienced when she was 12-years-old while taking horse back riding lessons from a horse trainer in Oregon.

BOOK SUMMARY:

I was 12 years old the first time my horse trainer grabbed my left boob and asked me if I had ever had sex. I'm not sure what caught me off guard the most: his question or the fact a 79-year-old man had his hand firmly cusped around my boob while asking me, a 12-year-old, if I had ever had sex. I've blocked out a lot of that season from my mind, but that first day sticks out clearer than the rest. Is it because of the shock? Is it because I hadn't fully remembered my pro-dissociation skills yet?

I have no f*cking clue, but I do remember the green-striped tank top and the dark navy blue jeans I had on that day. I remember watching his lips ooze as the words, "Have you ever had sex?" spilled out of them. I remember the blank stare in his eyes, the black specks of chew stuck in his teeth, and the way his cheeks met his chin like a pillow shoved under fitted sheets.

My eyes left my left boob, flung around the barn, and up to his face. The light coming in from the barn door behind him lit his back, but darkened his face so his face looked as dark as the blank stare in his eyes. My brain raced for answers that made sense. Hell, it searched for a question that made sense too. "No, of course not. Wait, why is this happening? How do I answer? Do I answer? Am I dreaming?" I couldn't speak, so I looked up at him blankly then he turned and walked away.

LINKS + CONTACT:

Get on the Waitlist for my next book: https://thewesternhippie.myflodesk.com/mc5b9wv2ps

Grab a hard copy of The Barn Off of Colfax Lane here: https://amzn.to/3PvBiKN

For inquiries or to connect with Michaela directly, email michaela@michaelamae.com

© 2024 MP Media. All rights reserved.

Narrated by Author Michaela Mae.

Keywords: survivor memoir, childhood sexual abuse memoir, childhood sexual abuse, trauma memoir, healing memoir, horse trainer abuse, equestrian community, read by the author, audiobook, Oregon, Michaela Mae

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Chapter 2, Afterthoughts. I I had a second afterthought come up about chapter one. So I'm gonna start this chapter two afterthoughts as a chapter one afterthoughts one point oh or two point oh if you will. And it was again I d I didn't realize it till after I recorded that last afterthoughts and was thinking about it as I was reading chapter two. The way that I'm doing this audiobook was inspired by that teacher as well. And I didn't even really put that together until realizing when I decided to record this audiobook because at one point I wanted, you know, to rent a studio and all of these things. And then when I really sat with it and asked myself, like, how do I want this audiobook to feel? It came back to how when my teacher was reading us a book called Milkweed, like how we felt while she was reading that. And I just remember, you know, I she typically read to us, I believe it was after recess, and we'd come in, and instead of making us go right back to work, she just let us relax and she would read to us, and then between chapters, we would have this beautiful classroom discussion. And that was also the inspiration behind the afterthoughts was, you know, that feeling that she had created for us. And even, you know, like I had said in the prologue, that there is going to be a lot of ugly that lives on these pages, but you know, similar to what my fourth and fifth grade teacher did for me, even in inspiring me now, reading through chapter two, there was a lot of things that Todd inspired me with that I still do to this day. Like I loved his thoughtfulness, I loved his methodicalness, like his training protocols, which I'll get into on how I believe his philosophy there led into his like tactics with child grooming and stuff like that. And I do still value and appreciate a lot of the things that he taught me through that time. And I I as annoying as it was back then, and again, I don't appreciate how we went about it. I do think when you have a child with you, it is helpful. Again, I the way he did it, I believe, was tied to his child grooming tactic, but I do really appreciate how hard he pushed me for excellence as far as like, no, I don't care if you're 12, you're gonna clean the stall right. Like, I don't care if you're 12, you're gonna saddle a horse right. Like, I don't care if you're 12, like we're gonna do this properly. And that, you know, is part of the beauty I see in my time there was learning this thoughtfulness and this methodicalness from him. And so, you know, even in that, I I never it's that's what's kind of beautiful about the these early chapters is it was kind of before everything started to roll downhill, before the shitstorm, if you will. And so it is kind of fun to reread these and remember my relationship with him before things went the way that they did. And there was like this part that I did appreciate. I did appreciate the break from the hayfields, I did appreciate that time with him, I did appreciate like how he was quiet and still, and I had that time. And so that's what's kind of interesting about reading these beginning chapters, but then also doing these afterthoughts is it is remembering the good times because I think those times tend to be easier to forget once after something bad happens, right? Like we tend to just remember that bad and hard, and so in a weird way, I actually am enjoying remembering. Yeah, there were hard parts, like I did get really frustrated, and I was really mad at him, and with all the ways he was handling the stall cleaning thing. Like, dude, just tell me to level the thing without a leveler and I'll figure it out. Don't don't make me keep guessing. And um I I do appreciate some things, so that's that was kind of the the thoughts I was taking away from this afterthoughts is it is kind of remembering the parts that I did appreciate from that time instead of just remembering what we're gonna go through in these later chapters, which tends to be like more difficult and more hard. Um, I have enjoyed rereading this with you and remembering some of the good things too.